Keeneland November's fifth session holds steady, has $270k topper

Multiple stakes winner Divine Queen sold for $270,000 to lead Friday's session of the Keeneland November breeding stock sale, which reached its midpoint with solid figures in the middle market, but a decline in the cumulative average to this point.

Keeneland reported 235 horses sold for a gross of $13,032,000 during Friday's session, the second of two in the Book 3 section and the fifth of 10 in the sale overall. In the comparable fifth session of the 2019 renewal, 251 horses sold for $14,269,500.

After Thursday's Book 3 opener posted a gain in average, the Friday session's average price was $55,455, a minor change of just 2 percent from $56,851 in the comparable session. Overall, the average price at the midway point of Keeneland November sits at $131,060, tracking downward 10 percent from $145,904 through five sessions last year.

The session-to-session median ticked down 2 percent, to $42,000 from $43,000. The buyback rate was 20 percent, a solid figure in an extremely selective marketplace, and improved slightly from 21 percent in the corresponding 2019 session.

Divine Queen sold to Avout Bloodstock from the consignment of Tom Evans's Trackside Farm, as agent for trainer Buff Bradley and Carl Hurst, who bred and campaigned the mare in partnership. A 5-year-old daughter of Divine Park, Divine Queen, who was offered as a racing or broodmare prospect, scored her first stakes win in the 2018 Dogwood Stakes at Churchill Downs. She went on to win the 2019 Open Mind Stakes at Churchill and finished second in the Groupie Doll Stakes at Ellis Park.

Divine Queen is out of the stakes-winning Williamstown mare Town Queen, making her a half-sister to Grade 3-placed stakes winner Queen's Award. The latter is the dam of Grade 3-placed Alta's Award, and another half-sister, Hour Queen, produced multiple graded stakes winner The Player.

The session's highest-priced weanling was a $225,000 colt by leading freshman sire Nyquist, purchased by Sycamore. He was consigned by Mulholland Springs, as agent.

The colt, an April foal, is out of the unraced El Corredor mare Senorita Corredora, the dam of stakes-placed Holiday's Angel. Graded stakes winners Dark Nile, Lou Brissie, and Thatlookonyerface appear on the catalog page.

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